Throwback Thursday

See what books Amy liked growing up

It's hard to pinpoint one favorite book I had as a child. I can remember series more than singular books. My ultimate favorite was The Babysitter's Club by Ann M Martin. I must have read every single book in this series at least three times. The girls in these books were like my besties back then. I related to them, I looked up to them, and I spent every weekend with them. In my teen years, I loved to babysit and always dreamed of creating my own club but never was able to do so. Occasionally I see these books in bookstores and I want to pick them up and see if I can still enjoy the stories but I'm afraid to in the event that it will ruin my memories of them.

The other books that stand out to me from my childhood are the ones that were called "Choose your own adventure." I'm not sure if these books are still around but they were designed so that you could read the book several times and have a new adventure each time. You'd get to a certain page and it would give you the choice of what direction you wanted the book to go. You chose what you wanted and the book directed you to what page to go to for your version of the story. I enjoyed reading these several times so I could choose a different ending each time.

These books may have been my favorites long before I began my writing career, but they still influenced me heavily.  In school, we were required to read certain books but the ones that meant the most to me were the ones I chose on my own such as the two series above.  Writing helps me relax and de-stress, but it also makes me happy to make others happy. There is nothing better than hearing from someone who loved one of your books. I have loyal readers who speak of these characters as though they were close friends. People who've never had a book stir those feelings in them wouldn't understand.  People with a true love of reading allow themselves to get lost in the written word. I want my writing to make people feel like that. I love hearing, "Ashton is my new book boyfriend" or "Cameron and I need to totally hang out", both of these are things readers have said to me after reading The Southern Devotion Series.